[thehoff]

When we bought a place years ago we used an agent. He didn't do much in finding the place for us. We did most of that legwork (using realtor.com, zillow, and trulia). We'd call him up with a short list of places we wanted to see and he opened the doors for us. So not much value add there.

But he really earned his money by giving us advice on places we looked at (ie. "that doesn't look right, or this neighborhood may not be a great fit for you", etc). We looked at a lot of places. He also gave us advice when it came to closing. We walked from the first house we put a bid on after inspection gave us a pit in our stomachs. And he waived our inspection costs (he ate it) so it didn't cost us anything.

When we did buy a place he really made it happen and really helped us through all the paperwork (we didn't have the strongest offer).

When we sold our place several years later we used a different agent and she helped us move it in under 2 weeks. I really think it was her connections in finding a buyer that moved it so quickly as the first weekend she showed it (through private showings) we had multiple offers. She helped us look through all of them explaining and pointing out things we would never have noticed. And she definitely didn't push us in any direction, not even to the largest one (we went with a middle of the pack one passing up on another 15k). And I don't think it was solely the housing market we were in.

A lot of money for both agents there but in our eyes they both earned it.